Duo's Rat
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: Heero and Duo after the war, Duo's silent and Heero doesn't know why. Small chapters... written for fun
1. Default Chapter

Duo's Rat  
  
By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing  
  
Notes: It's been a while since I wrote Gundam Wing, but this story occurred to me and I wanted to.  
  
Heero knocked on the door to Duo's room. Their apartment had two rooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a silence that felt like the chill of winter that nurtured the seeds of spring. Duo didn't answer the knock. Heero didn't expect him too.  
  
The door opened slowly. Duo sat on the floor, a bowl of nori crackers next to him and a keyboard on his lap. He looked up, smiled so lightly, a Heero smile, not a Duo one.  
  
The war was gone, but it can leave damage in the strongest of buildings, and strength in buildings thought gutted already. They'd shared the apartment for seven months and Heero had yet to hear Duo say one word.  
  
Heero smiled his reply, blue eyes softened by affection, tolerance. Peace was like that.  
  
Duo bit his lip, lightly. His toes wiggled in white socks and he looked at the monitor.  
  
Heero squatted down, looked at what Duo was looking at. Rat. White and caramel, light colored rats with dark eyes and long tails. Duo's fingers touched the screen, tracing down the length of the one in the center, balancing on a limb.  
  
"Do you want a rat," Heero asked softly.  
  
Duo nodded.  
  
At first Heero had been angry, when he'd first found Duo. Hate he hadn't felt towards other living beings raged. As Duo's body had healed, Heero had reached for something other than rage though. Rebuilding. It takes time and Heero thought, a person has to love what's now, not just wish for what was. Smiling, Heero nodded. "We will go out, together. And we will buy two rats. One for you. One for me."  
  
Violet eyes narrowed. Duo didn't talk anymore. Duo didn't go out of the house during 'day' hours on the colony. Duo studied Heero's face.  
  
Heero thought it was eerie sometimes, the way Duo looked at him, as if he didn't completely remember him, didn't totally know him. Heero did not really want to know what it had been that had cost Duo so much. It was enough for him that Duo was with him now, that there was a trust that went beyond knowing, that brought Duo to his room on bad nights. Sex had never been important to Heero, having been 'deleted' from his programming before he'd ever meet Duo. Duo sleeping in his arms was important to him.  
  
When Duo nodded, then rose to his feet, Heero wasn't sure what to label the feeling. The programming still kicked in from time to time, making his mind more machine like than human. Proscribed emotion. Happy. And like the programmer he was, Heero rewrote the law. Happy with Duo, allowed. He held out his hand. Duo hesitated, then closed his hand around Heero's tightly.  
  
Together, in the middle of the day, they went in search of rats. 


	2. two

Duo's Rat 2/?  
  
Disclaimers... don't own them. Tsk  
  
Bit Two  
  
I miss the sound of his voice. In the war, I didn't think I would. I thought what I really wanted was for him to shut up, to leave me alone. Now, I know his voice was what kept my humanity from completely vanishing. Now that he does not speak, I listen so much more closely, so closely I think sometimes I can hear his heart beating. As long as I can hear that, my humanity will continue to be.  
  
Heero's Journal  
  
Heero remembered when Duo would walk down the street , arms wide, loud, like he was a kid playing. Heero also remembered Duo when he was Shinigami, derisive, violent, sudden, deadly. It wasn't polite to psychoanalyze without permission and Heero had had enough of that thrown in his direction. So he wondered. He watched. He waited.  
  
He'd found Duo on L2, in a free hospital with a broken jaw and a broken pelvis. An abandoned building had collapsed. Duo had been so small, that at first, they'd thought he was just another of the children who had been hiding there. Heero had found Duo only because the Free Hospital had posted a sample of his dna, in the hopes of finding living relatives.  
  
"Thinking?" Duo signed, agile keyboarding fingers fast and graceful.  
  
"Thinking about when I found you."  
  
"Too late!" Duo's fingers flashed, "No return, no exchange!"  
  
Laughter sparkled and Heero stopped. Duo stopped, too, chin tilted towards his chest, almost afraid. Heero hated when Duo looked afraid. He hated to think what it would be like if Shinigami came back one day. Heero reached out, ran his hand slowly down Duo's bare arm, aligned his fingers with Duo's. "I love the sound of your laugh. I love your words, how ever you speak them."  
  
Hope flashed, maybe it was just injury, maybe even with rapid healing, Duo's body was just still healing. In time that voice would return, Duo would flash and tease and love Heero again. "Why do you want a rat," Heero asked.  
  
"Had one once," Duo signed, "Mean black rat. Want soft light rat that will let me pet it. Do you think of me before? Before you found me?"  
  
"Sometimes," Heero said, as they both started walking again, almost wishing he could be a rat, have Duo pet him. The stupidest thoughts, sometimes, yes, that was why he needed programming. "Do you think of me before I found you."  
  
The answer was short, snapped, ended in a fist. "No."  
  
Heero let the question lay, didn't judge it, didn't interpret. Not right then. "I will get a rat too and we will get a nice house for it."  
  
Duo's fingers slowly unclenched. "What if they fight?"  
  
"Then we will call them Relena and Wu fei," Heero said, completely straight faced.  
  
Duo laughed again, and slapped Heero with his braid. "I am a lot of work," Duo signed, studying the street sign, as if he weren't sure which way to go.  
  
"You mean when you are fixing my code," Heero asked, fighting off the clenching of his jaw. It was still hard to admit he needed help. While they made their money writing software together, made enough that Heero didn't have to keep drawing from accounts he'd nested away in years before, it was Duo's front ends, and human understanding ideas that made the stuff sell.  
  
"No," Duo said, "You know what I mean."  
  
"I like being helpful to you."  
  
"When I'm crying? When I don't cook and I don't out of bed?" Duo signed, hand at his side, looking down the street, as if the pet store was just over there, next block over. "When I'm too head bent to date?"  
  
Heero blinked, caught completely off guard, as he was by many things Duo did. "Why do you think I am unhappy about not going on dates?"  
  
Using both hands, and a rapid signing that probably only existed between the two of them, Duo spun around and bit Heero's tail. "So. You. Don't. Want. To date. Me?"  
  
Mind freeze. Hard reboot. Heero's mouth dropped open. Now he remembered why he would get irritated at Duo. Too much information that he didn't understand! Yes. "Stop. Duo. Please. I love you, but I don't know about dating and what you just said confused me." So honest, none of the wall that Heero had had in the war, only honest truth. "Go slow, so I can understand. I missed some training in being human."  
  
"You love me," Duo mouthed, no sound. "Why?"  
  
"I love you," Heero said And he could list all the reasons why. None of them mattered or were really unique to Duo, and yet, Heero knew he needed Duo. "I love you because loving you made me remember myself. I can explain better if you give me time to think about it."  
  
"I love you too," Duo mouthed, then offered his hand to Heero. Heero took it, and they went down the street because the pet store really was just down the block. 


End file.
